D.C. Councilwoman Muriel Bowser went public Thursday with her frustration with Mayor Vincent Gray for failing to nominate an ethics board on time, facing top Gray staff members for the first time since the missed deadline.
At a Thursday committee hearing meant to hash out the mayor’s recent budget proposal, the Ward 4 Democrat instead began by pressing Gray’s chief of staff, Chris Murphy, as to why his boss has failed to comply with the legislation, which Boswer and her committee had been charged with shepherding. Gray was given 45 days once the law took effect to find three candidates for a new Board of Ethics and Government Accountability. It has been nearly a month since those nominations were due on March 14.
“We’re already beyond the time frame we thought was reasonable…” she said at the hearing, adding that she understood the importance of finding quality candidates.
Murphy responded that they’ve had challenges finding candidates of the caliber that the mayor would like.
But Gray’s first public call for applicants didn’t come until March 7, a week before the due date. His spokesman Pedro Ribeiro told The Washington Examiner at the time of the missed deadline that they’d been holding prior internal deliberations.
Murphy testified Thursday there are currently less than 20 applicants for the seats.
“I think it’s not been as smooth as we had hoped,” he said.
Gray’s campaign is the subject of a federal investigation, calling into question this delay in complying with the new reforms.
But his office said Thursday that it had nothing further to say regarding its recent sluggishness.
“OBC [Office of Boards and Commissions] will continue to work expeditiously on ethics nominees and will send them to the Council shortly,” spokeswoman Doxie McCoy said in an email.
According to Murphy, “shortly” means around mid-April.
Bowser said she wants the nominations by April 17 after the council’s recess next week.
“If the mid-April date is missed, it makes it really difficult to move forward,” she said.
It isn’t just the new ethics board, however. More than a quarter of District government board seats remain vacant. Gray staffers are quick to point out that he inherited the majority of them from former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Still, some important boards are without a quorum and therefore incapable of doing its job.
Eleven seats on the Property Tax Appeals Board, which hears taxpayer complaints, are currently pending council approval after months of vacancy.
Murphy said the Office of Boards and Commissions, which is tasked with vetting the mayor’s nominations, is speeding up its processes, however. Last calendar year they filled 192 vacancies. This year, they’ve already made 126 appointments.
“I think you begin to see us pick up the pace as we begin to move faster and appoint people faster,” he said.
